


Prove Me Wrong

by gardensgnome



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character death of the non-permanent type, Community: no_true_pair, Gen, fighting with swords can get messy, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-26 23:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardensgnome/pseuds/gardensgnome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Squall's name appeared on the Fire Cavern test list, Seifer was no where to be found. The instructors breathed a sigh of relief until they realized Squall was missing as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prove Me Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 0tp over on DW. Prompt - Squall & Seifer, 'Hurricane' by 30 Seconds to Mars.

Bright blood arced across the training mat as Seifer flicked his blade down to shed it of the fluid coating it. Somewhere there was a scream and he heard feet running forward, muted over the gasping gurgle his ears focused on. Blue eyes stared at him in pain and surprise but he didn't linger on them long, his own drawn to the ceaseless flow of red dribbling down over a sweaty cadet uniform from under the hand that held onto a slit throat.

Shouts for an instructor were a distant sort of sound as he fought against the hands that tried to drag him away. He wouldn't leave, eyes locking again with pained blue as his opponent slipped in his own blood and hit the mats hard, blade thumping down beside him. Seifer watched until those eyes dulled and went blank, until the instructor arrived and yelled for him to be taken to the Headmaster, frantic casting of life and cure making the walls of the training room flash eerily with the shadows of the cadets watching in varying degrees of horror.

Squall was fifteen the first time Seifer killed him.

That first clash with real blades set a precedence for all their battles. Any time Seifer declared that Squall wasn't ready to be SeeD, the instructors knew to separate them or be ready to mop up the mess left behind after Seifer had proven his point. What horrified the other students the most was that Squall kept coming back for more. Cid did nothing to stop them and both of them indicated that interference was unappreciated.

It became most troublesome when they started taking their fights outside the training rooms. Any time a fight began, students would hurry off to get someone, anyone, to come and stop Seifer from killing Squall. They were both banned from carrying weapons inside Garden. What the instructors tended to forget was that they were training mercenaries. Who could kill with their bare hands and that anything was a weapon. Chairs, tables, glass shards from broken windows, dinner knives and once the fountain. Squall announced afterwards that he didn't like drowning. Seifer had laughed.

The fountain remained empty for six months after that particular fight.

Squall's forfeit of his life wasn't always the outcome of their battles. There were times they restrained themselves and followed the orders of their superiors, easing off and going through the motions of a fight, learning instead of simply killing, but those were few and far between.

By the time Squall was seventeen, everyone but Cid and Dr. Kadowaki had lost count of the times Squall had died by Seifer's hands.

The day Squall's name appeared on the Fire Cavern test list, Seifer was no where to be found. The instructors breathed a sigh of relief until they realized Squall was missing as well.

*****

Seifer stared at the waves crashing down below as the crunch of boots over rocky ground stopped just behind his right shoulder. Ignoring both the angry weather surrounding him and his companion, he turned to stare at Balamb Garden in the distance as it lit up under the darkening clouds.

"You know better than to come out here alone," he said, looking up as an errant drop of rain landed on his head. "You'll get wet."

"Whatever."

The click of the safety coming off was unmistakable even with the flash of lightning overhead and the rumble of thunder that followed it.

"Seriously?" Seifer asked. "You have the test tomorrow and you want to do this today. Death wish much?"

The silence beside him made Seifer look. Squall stared out at the ocean, eyes on the horizon, hand wrapped around the hilt of his gunblade.

"I'm not junctioned, Squall," Seifer added. 

A warning, one that was brushed off with the shrug of a shoulder.

"I left my phoenix down back in my room," Squall answered, slanting a sideways look at Seifer before turning and heading to more even ground.

 _Cocky bastard_. Seifer's jaw clenched and he glared at the place where Squall had stood. He heard Squall's gunblade clear its holster and the whistle of it through the air as Squall took a few practice swings.

Both he and Squall knew the longer one remained dead, the more it hurt to come back. That sometimes there was no coming back.

Joining Squall in the clearing amongst the rocks, Seifer drew Hyperion and smirked.

It was once again time to prove that Squall wasn't ready to be SeeD.


End file.
